


Before and After

by GalahadWilder



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Self-Harm, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-10 06:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11685630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: Adrien knows; in fact, Adrien has always known. Ladybug is Marinette, and he’s been in love with both of them since the day they met.But she doesn’t know that he’s Chat Noir. And Adrien can’t get close to her as himself--for some reason, Marinette can’t stand to be in the same room as him. But, for whatever reason, she’s comfortable with the cat. Which is how Paris’s favorite kitty begins to visit his Princess late at night, and learns something he really shouldn’t.Curiosity killed the Chat. And this girl is going to be the death of him.





	1. Moments

Adrien Agreste had always divided his life into “before” and “after.” While other people might have routines, plans, a seamless blending of month to month and year to year, Adrien’s life had always rested on moments--moments that stood apart from any others, moments that changed everything.

Before his mother vanished. After his mother vanished.

Before he began attending public school. After he began attending public school.

Before he became Chat Noir, one of Paris’ famous superhero duo. After he found the black ring that gave him his first taste of freedom, his first taste of a life outside his father’s walls.

Before he had fallen in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and everything after.

He could pinpoint the exact moment that he had begun to fall for her: it was that moment in the rain, when he’d given her his umbrella… and she’d given him a second chance. He'd looked into her eyes, so fierce, so blue, and seen the fire that burned so bright inside her, and he’d known that someday this girl was going to be the death of him.

But that wasn't where he divided it--not entirely. No, the moment, the moment when “before” had become “after,” had come less than a week later, when he’d looked into the eyes of the girl in the red spotted spandex, seen the triumph in them as that first purified akuma fluttered off into the sky, and he'd known. That fire in Marinette’s eyes, that fire that he had been dreaming about for three nights nonstop, was the same that he’d seen that moment in Ladybug’s stormy blues.

Marinette was his partner. And god, he loved her.

And she couldn't stand the sight of him.

\---

He couldn't understand it, not entirely. Marinette gave everybody a second chance--always a kind word to everyone, always ready to help. He saw it weekly in Ladybug, too--she was the first to comfort an akuma victim after the fight was over, to assure them that it wasn't their fault, to make sure that the public knew not to blame them. The only person who ever drew her scorn was Chloè, and, as Adrien had been learning over the past year, his former friend had deserved every inch of that hatred. And even then, Ladybug had been able to put her feelings aside during the numerous times when Bourgeois has been threatened by akuma (seriously, how the hell did Chloè not notice how many of them went for her?), willing to lay down her life to protect someone she hated.

So what had Adrien Agreste done to her to merit her silent hatred? Every time he tried to talk to her, she'd panic, stammer something unintelligible and sarcastic, and bolt. Did she really despise him so much that she couldn't stand to speak to him unless he was wearing cat ears and a leather suit?

He did his best to ignore it with Ladybug, to keep the two identities separate in his head; she didn’t know it was him flirting with her, so he could be as brash and as bold as he wanted. As Adrien, he was as inoffensive as he could be, even if it didn't ever seem to make a difference. As Chat Noir, she didn't know that he was the same boy she hated so much; as Chat Noir, he could tell her all the things he wanted to say to her as Adrien, even if Ladybug never believed him. Even if she never saw him as something more than a friend. He could take that. If that was all she could give him, then that could be enough.

\---

Before and after, like cause and effect. One followed the other, though not always in the way he expected.

The night it happened was just like any other… except that, on this one night, something in him finally broke.

Adrien stormed through the door to his room, throwing it shut with as much force as his enhanced muscles could throw into it. For a moment, he stood, staring at the stark white walls of his room--walls too wide, walls too clean, walls too dead.

Then he turned, smashed his fist into the wall, and screamed.

“Hey! Hey, kid!” a tiny voice croaked from his shirt pocket. “Watch it!” The tiny black shape of Plagg, the cat god that had given him his powers, bumbled up into the air in front of him. Its eyes were narrowed in sleepy annoyance. “You're interrupting my nap.”

Normally Adrien would have snapped something back about how the cat napped enough already, but today, he just didn't have it in him. “Sorry, Plagg,” he said. “I just… I'm just…” He closed his eyes and sighed, his shoulders slumping. “What the hell does he expect of me?”

Plagg’s eyes widened, showing more of the unnatural green sclera that seemed to fill the creature’s head. “Adrien, did you just… swear?”

Adrien nodded. He clenched his fist against the wall, his tendons tightening against his bones.

“Hey. Kid.” Plagg nuzzled up against his cheek, an unusual gesture from the usually sarcastic Kwami. “What’s up? What happened?”

The scent of rotting cheese filled Adrien’s nose. He sighed again, pulled back his knuckles from the wall. Dammit. No blood. He'd wanted to hurt, to feel something, to smash scarlet across the perfect façade of his father’s fucking white walls. “We got our grades back today,” he said, avoiding the Kwami’s gaze. “I got a lecture from him about how much of a disappointment I was, how I had to uphold the family name, how he expects better of me--”

“So?” Plagg interrupted, clearly confused. “Lots of kids get lectures from their parents about their grades.”

“Ninety-eight, Plagg,” Adrien said through gritted teeth. “Ninety. Eight.”

“Is that… good?”

“Nearly perfect.” He dropped onto his bed, crumpling the spotless sheets beneath him. “But I guess nearly isn't good enough for Gabriel fucking Agreste.” He breathed in, deep and shaky, trying not to let the tears well up from his eyes. “He said… he said he was going to pull me out.”

Plagg floated down to Adrien’s nightstand, staring at the floor. “Oh.”

The sat there in silence for a few moments, neither of them looking at the other. 

“I can't go back to blank walls, Plagg.”

Plagg said nothing.

Adrien squeezed his eyes shut. “I can't let him take my life away from me,” he whispered. “Not again.”

Then Adrien’s gaze wandered to the silver ring on his right hand, and “before” ended--though he didn't know it yet. “Plagg,” he said, his voice trembling, “claws out.”

Less than a minute later, Adrien Agreste was gone… and Chat Noir was out the window, over the wall, and down the street.

\---

He didn't think. He just ran. Vaulted over the roofs of Paris, bounding on all fours without a single moment of thought of where he was going. Running until all of the thoughts were left behind him, strewn across the city and someone else’s problem. No Adrien, not now. Just Chat Noir.

He didn't realize where he was going until he was already there. The Dupain-Cheng Patisserie & Boulangerie. Across the street from her window. From her balcony.

He could hear her singing.

Before he knew what he was doing, he'd jumped over the avenue, landing on her balcony with a thud. Immediately, her song stopped.

“Hello?” he heard her call from inside her room, her voice a little afraid, but mostly expectant. “Is someone there?”

\---

He didn't know it yet, but that was the moment “after” began.


	2. Chats in the Belfry

“Hello?” she called. “Is someone there?”

Chat’s heart leaped into his throat, and he swore he could feel it trying to crush his vocal cords together. Despite the nervous tremble he heard, that was unmistakably his Lady’s voice--the one that so often filled his dreams and his daydreams. It had taken him a month to learn to separate “Marinette” from “Ladybug,” but every time he heard her speak, it was like starting all over again.

He shouldn’t be here. This was a bad idea.

He cleared his throat. “It’s just… Ah… Just Chat Noir, late-night patrol,” he called back, unable to keep the tremor from his voice. _Stupid, stupid, STUPID! She KNOWS we don’t do patrols this late! What will she think you’re doing?_

She was going to realize he was here to see her, that he was… oh God, he was _stalking_ her in costume, and then she’d never speak to him again. He was going to lose Ladybug, lose what little of her he had, and all he’d have left would be her quiet, cold hatred, in both masks.

There was a clatter from inside her room, then the trapdoor of the balcony creaked open to reveal Marinette’s wide eyes. Her hair was down, he noticed, and just the sight of it so soft and wavy was enough to make his heart stutter in his chest.

“Chat?” she said, her voice tinged with surprise and soft concern. “Have you been crying?”

He blinked and reached on claw up to his face, surprised to find a wetness gathering beneath his eyes. “Oh,” he whispered. “I… Guess I have.”

He blinked the tears from his face and shook his head, shaggy hair flopping around like fur. “It’s all right, Ma--Princess,” he said. He wasn’t… _completely_ sure where the term of endearment had come from, but it was better than revealing that he already knew/remembered her name. He flashed her his trademark Cheshire grin. “Just a _hairy_ night, you know?”

She raised her eyebrows at him, incredulity written across her expression. Chat was thankful for that; last time “Marinette” had spent time with “Chat,” she’d pretended to be an airheaded fangirl, as if she was trying to push him away completely. It was everything he hated about Chloè, everything he hated about the world he had been born into. And, frankly, it had _hurt_ \--though not as much as seeing the way that Nathanael had looked at her. So he was glad for her honesty tonight, glad that she was showing him the real Marinette: the girl who was one hundred percent done with his shit.

He grinned back, putting as much effort into it as he could to make sure it didn’t falter. “No need to worry about me, _Purr_ incess,” he purred. Not his best pun, he knew, but it was something that he needed, something to bury Adrien’s feelings and armor himself beneath Chat’s cocky grin. “ _Somebody’s_ got to keep the city free of mice.”

Her gaze softened, and he saw her eyes flick downward toward her room, then back up to meet his. Flick, flick. Flick, flick. Then--decision?

“Would you like to come inside?”

_Fuck._

_Fuck fuck fuck._

He'd daydreamed about this moment a hundred times, but he'd never believed… She hated him as Adrien, tolerated him as Chat--and now his Lady had invited him inside. “Of _claws_ I would,” he said. _More than anything._

Marinette laughed, not the way Ladybug laughed at his puns, professional and aggravated, but in a way entirely her own, a laugh like bottled sunshine. “You’re simply _pawful_ , Kitty,” she teased.

Did she just… did she just pun?

Oh god. He was so screwed.

\---

Her room was exactly as pink as he’d expected it to be. Though, surprisingly, quite a bit more orange.

What he hadn't expected was to see Marinette… wearing _Chat Noir pajamas._

“I knew you were a fan, Princess, but I didn't realize you were so intent on… sleeping with me,” he said with a grin.

Marinette turned to look at him, confused, until she looked down. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” she muttered.

Chat launched himself onto the chaise lounge in the corner. “It's all right, I'm not offended. Half of Paris wants a piece of this kitty, after all.”

Marinette scoffed. “Yeah, and the other half has taste.”

Chat put a finger to his chin and nodded. “You're right--the half that wants Ladybug has _much_ better judgment.”

Marinette squeaked. “What? I… you…” She fell silent, her mouth open, her face slowly working its way to perhaps the pinkest shade he'd ever seen a human wear. He was surprised it didn't come boiling out her ears. Or maybe whistling, like an overheated teapot.

“It's fun to see you blush, Princess.” He leaned forward, bracing his chin with his hands. “I take it you’re part of the second half?”

She smacked his shoulder, but--despite her annoyance--there was a grin on her face. “Not funny, Chat.”

Chat smirked. “It's a little funny.”

Marinette flopped into her obnoxiously pink bed with a huff. “Why did I let you in here, if you were just going to make fun of me?” Then she sat up. “Wait,” she said. “You were crying.”

Chat smiled back at her, but he could tell it was a sad smile by the way her eyes moistened with concern. Concern for him--not just as Chat Noir, but as her friend. “I’ll be fine, Princess.” Marinette, he realized, might be the only person who would notice if he disappeared. Well, her and Nino, he supposed.

She looked at him strangely, then, halfway between concern and guilt. “Did… something happen between you and Ladybug?”

 _She thinks it’s her fault._ Chat laughed, waving off her concern. “Of course not! That would be _paw_ tently ridiculous!” Then he swallowed. “Not, it's… I just… can't be at home right now.” He shook his head. “Not with him.”

Marinette shuffled forward on her knees and laid her hand on his arm. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

He chuckled sadly. “I’d rather not think about it at all, actually.”

“Well… what would you rather do?”

_Kiss you._

“What?”

Adrien’s breath caught in his throat. “What?”

“Kiss me?”

“I, uh…” _Oh shit. I said that out loud. Recover, recover_ … He bowed. “Of course, Princess! Whatever you wish.”

“Chat!” she squealed, pushing him back. “You’re awful!”

“Don't you mean _paw_ ful?” he responded. Then his face fell. “But actually. There is something.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow.

Chat’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. “Do you like videogames?”

Marinette’s face was only made cuter by the smile that spread across it.

\---

Marinette drifted in and out of dreams. Half-awake, wasn't quite sure why she felt so warm. Her Chat Noir pajamas, though they may have been her favorites, were hardly this warm or comfortable. Her dream hadn't seemed to have quite faded, either; she could still feel the strong chest that she was snuggled up to. She’d been dreaming that she'd been visited by her partner, that he had been distraught, that he had come to her for comfort. That she had kicked his ass for two straight hours at Mecha Strike before he had fallen asleep on her bed. He'd looked so sweet, so vulnerable, she couldn't bear to wake him up. So she'd cuddled up next to him, and then…

Well. It didn't matter. She was still dreaming, and if he'd wrapped his arms around her while she had been asleep, it didn't really change anything, did it? A dream was a dream, and his arms were warm. For a moment, she could almost imagine they were Adrien’s, and she drifted back into sleep with a pleased hum, to dream of black cats scratching at her window, black cats who cuddled her and black cats who turned into sweet boys and who wrapped their arms around her and everything was warm.


	3. My Darling I Have Seen a Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhat blatantly inspired by midnightstarlightwrite's "Smoulder." http://archiveofourown.org/works/6697144/chapters/15317038

Chat Noir woke up the next morning at 4 AM--silently thankful for the schedule his father had drilled into him for years--to find himself in _Marinette’s_ bed, still in his Chat Noir suit, with her nestled into his chest, murmuring happily in her sleep. The raven-haired beauty’s arms and legs were wrapped almost entirely around his body, clinging to him tighter than he'd ever felt any human contact before.

 _Careful, Kitty_ , he thought. _This isn't about you. She's just cuddling you because you're what's there, not because it's you. She's probably done this to Alya a hundred times._

Still, it couldn't hurt to let himself enjoy it, just for a minute or two. He relaxed, melting into her tiny arms with a purr. His hand raised to the back of her head, and he ran his gloved hands gently through her hair, enjoying the feel of the wavy threads between his fingers and savoring the sweet scents of yeast and cinnamon in his feline nose.

Still, he needed to leave eventually; he needed to be back to his room by 5, before anyone noticed he was gone (and God, was _that_ a depressing thought--he'd been gone all night, and he doubted anyone had cared enough to notice). With as much grace and care as he could muster, he extricated himself from Marinette’s sleeping arms, trying not to jostle her awake.

Her arms clenched tighter around him for a moment. “ _Mmm, kitty…_ ”

Chat’s eyes widened. Oh, no. She was going to wake up and realize she'd been cuddling him, and then she'd panic, and she'd slap him, and she'd hate him, and he'd never see Ladybug again--

Her grip loosened, and she giggled. “ _Why yes, Adrien, I **would** like a strawberry mountain…_ ”

Chat heaved a sigh of relief. Still dreaming, then. He finished slipping out of bed as quietly as he could, tiptoed his way to the trapdoor to her balcony, and slipped out, quiet as a… well, as a cat.

He made it home in 15 minutes, detransforming and leaping into his closet to put on his pajamas. Plagg, ejected from his ring, headbutted him in the cheek as he jumped into his pants. “Hey!” the Kwami whined. “What's the big idea, staying in the suit all night?”

Adrien tugged on his nightshirt. “Sorry, Plagg. I kinda… fell asleep.”

“At Marinette’s house?”

Adrian said nothing.

Plagg groaned. “You're an idiot. And you owe me _so much cheese_ for last night…”

“Come on, Plagg, you're not _that_ tired.”

Plagg drooped in midair and started snoring.

Adrien flicked him. “You can't sleep in midair, Plagg.”

“Can too,” Plagg replied without opening his eyes.

Adrien sighed, but said nothing, electing to simply walk past him and slip into bed for another forty minutes of sleep before Nathalie came in to check on him.

\---

Adrien didn't go to school that day; his father had scheduled a modeling shoot for him at one of the better-read fashion magazines in Paris. He hadn't been looking forward to it, since he’d been told he was going to be modeling opposite Mèlanie Petit, a young brunette who had been throwing herself at Adrien since before either of them had really had any idea of what happened between boys and girls--she'd only been interested in the prestige of the Agreste name, from the very beginning. It was perhaps the only thing that Adrien was still grateful to Chloè about: her extreme possessiveness had kept Mèlanie, and models like her, from trying to press nonexistent claims on him and tearing him to shreds between them.

So no, he was not looking forward to spending a few hours half-naked in close quarters with a hungry Mèlanie Petit. But, after the debacle with his grades yesterday afternoon, he didn't dare skip out--not when his father was still threatening to pull him out of school.

Which is how he found himself waiting in front of a camera, being salivated over by a pretty girl--a situation some boys his age would kill for (and some had tried to, based on the disturbing number of akuma who had been caused by Chloè Bourgeois)--and sweating uncomfortably, wishing that she would just back off and leave the flirting for when the cameras were rolling.

“Oh, Adrien,” she purred, running her finger down his bare chest as the camera crew rearranged for the next shot. “You've grown up so much since our last shoot…” She looked up at him with wide eyes, a faux-innocent pout plastered across her face. “I bet you could just eat me up, couldn't you?”

 _She's not into you, she's not into you, she's not into you_ , he chanted in his head, feeling the blush creeping up his cheeks and ears. _She wants the name... and the face...and the… chest…not me._ “M-M-Mel,” he stammered, pushing her away. “The cameras aren't rolling, there’s… no need to stay in character…”

He trailed off as her fingers traced shivers down his bicep. She leaned upward, putting her lips next to his ear. “ _I know_ ,” she whispered.

Adrien swallowed. Oh God, this was going to get worse before it got better, wasn't it.

“Next shot!” the director called. “Models to places!”

_Oh thank God._

The shot called for the two models to look into each other’s faces; the director was asking for Mèlanie and Adrien to look “innocent and hungry, like Little Red Cap and the Wolf.” Mèlanie had innocent down on the first shot, frightened, yet curious, but Adrien couldn't for the life of him manage the wolf. “Come on!” the director shouted, waving his hands. “She is delicious morsel, you want to eat her up! _Be_ the wolf!”

But Adrien couldn't. It was just… too uncomfortable.

“Agh, we take five minutes and do it again.”

Adrien rushed off to the bathroom before anyone could stop him, going to the sink and splashing cold water over his face. “I can't do it, Plagg,” he said.

“Can't do what?” the tiny god croaked as it floated up from Adrien’s pocket. “You better not be talking about feeding me this time, because I'm _huuuungryyyyy_.”

Adrien reached into his pocket for a few of the cubes of cheese that he’d slipped off the craft table, tossing them to the floating cat.

Plagg caught them each in his mouth with a satisfied meow. “Aww, Adrien, you _do_ care!”

Adrien sighed, looking back into the mirror, into his tires green eyes. “I can't deal with Mèlanie today, Plagg. I just can't.”

“Why not?”

“She's… she won't back off! They want me to look at her like I want her, but all I want is for her to go away!”

Plagg sucked his hands clean of cheese residue and cackled. “Bet you wouldn't have this problem with _Marinette_ , would you?”

Adrien smirked. “No, I probably--” Then he straightened. “That… that might work.”

“What might?”

“You're a genius, Plagg!” Adrien said, grabbing the Kwami and petting its head with one finger. “I'll just… pretend she’s Ladybug, and there’ll be no problem!”

Plagg raised an eyebrow. “You're kidding, right?”

Adrien grinned, already feeling himself slipping into Chat. “You got a better idea?”

\---

Chat Noir stepped out of the bathroom, wearing far less than his usual armored leather suit; not even a mask on his face. It didn't matter, though--he was still the coolest cat in Paris. Everyone loved him, not because of his face or his name, but because he’d earned it, because he’d risked his life to save theirs countless times. And no matter how many times he got knocked down, he always bounced right back up.

The rest of the shoot went to perfection--though Mèlanie did keep blushing, stammering, stumbling over her words. It didn't make a difference to Chat; he was smooth enough for the both of them. He purred and pinned and flirted as if it was his Ladybug, not Petit, who was standing in front of him.

It wasn't until the last shot of the afternoon that they were interrupted by the sound of far-off screaming.


	4. Fragile as Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update, biatch!

Chat Noir hadn't realized just how many windows there were in Paris until he had to dodge them all to avoid being sliced to ribbons. Fighting his way through a hurricane of glass was not how he looked forward to spending his afternoon.

What was worse was that he couldn't get between Ladybug and this many projectiles. He could hear her cry out in pain every time one pierced her suit, every cry and bit-off curse a reminder of his failure, each one sending a twist into his gut. Each one, he breathed a sigh of relief that his Lady was still alive to make it, since it was the only way he could tell that she was still there; each one sent the tension in his shoulders ever higher, as he feared they would be her last.

He gritted his teeth and plunged further into the storm of glass, ignoring the deadened stings of sharpened silicate tearing into the flesh beneath his shredded suit. He didn't dare open his mouth to cry out, much less pun, as he advanced, lest he end up with a mouthful of glass.

The akuma was called The Glassblower, or something like that--admittedly, one of the least stupid names that Hawkmoth had come up with for his crazed servants. He’d had some major project or other that had taken a lot of time and effort, and his assistant had dropped it and shattered it just before delivery. It was fairly obvious to Chat where his akuma was--in the glassblowing wand, or whatever it was called--but he couldn't get close enough; the storm of glass kept driving him back.

“This isn't working!” he heard Ladybug call from across the whirlwind. “I need some space!”

“On it, My Lady!” Chat yelled back. He squared his shoulders and began to spin his baton, extending it into a staff as he drove forward. “Hey Glass Blaster!”

The cutting wind didn't react, didn't respond. Chat wasn't surprised; it was near-impossible to hear over the overwhelming clattering and smashing of glass.

Chat raised his voice. “You can't _win_ dow against us, you know! Don't _forge_ get, we've beaten every other akuma so far!”

All the glass froze in midair, and for a moment, Chat panicked. _He's going to throw it all at me,_ he thought. Then the glass in front of him parted, and he found himself looking into the face of a man who would not look out of place in a medieval smithy--swarthy and well-muscled, covered in dirt. What set him apart was the fact that he seemed to be wearing green glass armor, which dazzled in the light of the late afternoon sun.

“Glassblowing doesn't use a forge, you stupid cat!” he said, incredulous. “It uses a kiln!”

“Oh, really?” Chat said, schooling his expression into innocence as he heard Ladybug calling for her Lucky Charm in the middle distance. “I’ll have to make sure I don't…” He grinned. “... _forge_ get that for next time.”

After a second of what Chat had come to describe as “pun-processing face,” the Glassblower growled, then swung his arm. Chat had barely a second to react before something slammed into his side, throwing him out of the storm and into a nearby wall hard enough to crack the brick.

He hit the ground feet-first, already prepared to jump back into the fray, before he was brought to a halt by Ladybug’s shocked and terrified expression. “What?” he said.

“You're… you're bleeding, Chat,” she whispered, her blue eyes wide and unblinking. “You're bleeding everywhere.”

Chat looked down, expecting to see the usual black leather of his armored suit. Instead, all he saw was dull red.

His suit was torn to shreds, as was the skin beneath it. What little exposed skin hadn't been ripped apart by flying glass was covered with abrasions from slamming into the rough brick. His whole body was an open wound, raw and bleeding, and he didn't feel a bit of it.

_You've gone into shock,_ he realized. _You have to stay alert. She needs you focused._

He looked back up to find Ladybug still staring at him… so she couldn't see the plate of jagged glass that was flying right for her head.

There was no time to yell a warning, no time to even think; he moved on instinct, barreling his shoulder into her stomach and knocking her out of the way of the massive shard. He felt a sickening _squelch_ as it stabbed into his shoulder blade, and he screamed as a line of fire ripped across his back.

Ladybug hit the ground, breath knocked out of her, but alive. She was in much better shape than he was, thank God: her suit only had small slashes across it, only little cuts on her skin. Whatever her Lucky Charm was skittered across the cobblestones.

Chat dropped to his knees, cradling his dangling left arm. The feeling had vanished from the bloodied limb, and he couldn't get his fingers to respond.

“C-Chat,” he heard Ladybug whisper, terror thrilling through her voice.

Chat forced himself to smile. “I'm fine, My Lady,” he rasped. “This cat can take a licking _way_ worse than this.”

She kept staring at him. She almost looked like she was about to cry.

“What was the Lucky Charm?” Chat said, fighting to keep his voice calm. She didn't need to hear him freaking out too--if she was gonna keep up the fight, she had to believe he was okay.

“It--it was a weather radar,” she said. “His storm… it’s like a hurricane. There's an eye in the middle of it.”

She was shaking, terrified. And, for a moment, Chat wasn't looking at Ladybug behind that mask--he was seeing Marinette.

She met his eyes as she pushed herself to her feet. “I need your baton, Chat,” she said. “My yo-yo won't get me high enough to get over the stormwall.”

“You don't know how to use it. If you aim wrong, you'll fall right into the middle of the glass!”

“I've _got_ this, Chat! You're too beat up to go back in--it has to be me!”

“I can't let you go back in there,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

Ladybug opened her mouth to interject, but Chat was already running. His left arm flopped uselessly behind him, but his right… his right was still strong. He planted the baton into the ground and let it extend, launching him up into the air and over the slowly expanding cloud of glass.

He could see the eye from where he was; adjusting his landing barely took any thought at all. He arced down into the empty space next to the armored man, smashing his face with one leather-clad foot and smacking his wand toward Ladybug with the other.

All of the glass stopped at once, frozen in midair. The Glassblower yelled something angry-sounding--Adrien wasn't sure what; he couldn't focus enough to make it out. All he was aware of was the screaming, burning pain that danced across his skin. In the distance, he heard the sound of something snapping, and the telltale noise of Ladybug purifying the akuma--a bit more panicked than usual, he thought, but it wasn't the easiest thing to tell.

He didn't hear her call for the Miracle Cure, but he did feel it wash over him--like a swarm of insects over his skin. Feeling returned before pain left, and for a half-second, everything was red with hot agony, before it all washed away again.

He lay there for a moment, eyes closed, catching his breath and testing the renewed feeling in his left arm. They'd done it. They'd won.

Distantly, he heard Ladybug call out to him, worry in her voice.

“I'm fine, My Lady,” he called back. Or at least tried to call. It came out as more of a loud slur. “Just taking a little cat-nap.”

He stayed there, unmoving, soaking up the last rays of Paris sunshine before the sun dipped below the building line. He could hear Ladybug’s tiny feet pitter-pattering closer to him, and he looked up expectantly, a warm smile on his face to greet his Lady.

She wasn't smiling, though. Her face was nearly the same red as her mask, all scrunched up and twisted, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. For a moment, Chat wondered what was wrong. They'd won, hadn't they? It was such a lovely day. They'd won, and now they could relax.

Ladybug seemed to think differently.

“ _WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?_ ”


	5. What the Storm Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of my pre-written chapters. I have some ideas of where it goes from here, but... might take some time. Hope you've been enjoying it so far!

Twenty-three thousand views in six hours.

Adrien was fairly certain that at least six thousand of those were him.

Adrien had made a habit of watching Alya’s recaps of Team Miraculous’ fights on the Ladyblog following those fights--partly to review what he could have done differently, partly just to watch Ladybug in action. But the video of the battle against the Glassblower… he could understand, now, why Ladybug had been so terrified. He had BEEN there, and every time he saw Chat Noir go down, he wasn't sure that he was going to get back up again.

_WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?_

He hit “play” again. Saw a broken, bloodied Chat Noir throw himself between Ladybug and the lethal blade of glass, heard him scream in pain; in the video, he could see Ladybug’s face wrench into horror at the sound. Saw Chat Noir, barely standing, half-dead, launch himself into the sky, and then the whole field of glass simply coming to a halt.

_**“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?”** _

_“My Lady?”_

_“Do you have **any** idea how many times you almost died? I had to repair **nerve damage** , Chat. NERVE DAMAGE. We weren't even sure I could **do** that!” Chat Noir scrabbles backwards, away from Ladybug’s fury, but she only advances further. “I don't know if I can fix **dead** , Noir! And I really don't want to find out!”_

_“I couldn't lose you.” His voice is calm, measured--the voice of a man who is bottling everything he feels as tight as he can, lest he explode._

_“I can't lose you either!” Ladybug is crying now, her voice wet with rage. “I WILL NOT STAND BACK AND WATCH YOU DIE!”_

_They are interrupted by the sound of beeping, signaling the end of Ladybug’s transformation. They both glance at Ladybug’s earrings; then she locks eyes with him once more._

_“This conversation isn't over,” she says, then flings her yo-yo into the sky and launches herself after it._

He could see why she’d been so upset with him, now: in the video, he’d looked one step from dead. The last moment, when he'd kicked the wand out of Glassblower’s hand and fallen to the ground, looked to anyone watching like Chat Noir had straight-up died. He'd looked like a walking corpse for most of the battle, barely even staying on his feet. _She’s never going to forgive me for this, is she._

He slid his baton closed, covering the screen, and hooked it to his belt. He couldn't keep watching that again and again. Could look at Ladybug’s face every time he launched himself into the sky. Couldn't listen to her agonized screams when he dropped to the ground.

Instead, he stood up, and looked across the street to her window.

His father had screamed at him again, this time for ditching the shoot before it was finished. Regardless of the fact that so had everyone else; regardless of the fact that he _had_ nearly died today (though, to be fair, his father hadn't known that); “An Agreste has an image that he must uphold. You must honor the family name.”

Well, fuck that. Fuck the image, and fuck the name. No more Agreste tonight; not for this kitty. No, Chat Noir had better places to be.

He jumped across the street--and felt something in his back RIP on landing, driving the air from his lungs with a huff and a red-hot spike of pain. Barely managing not to scream, he gathered himself up and knocked on Marinette’s window.

He heard her hesitate. “...Chat?” She opened the trap door with trepidation. “What are you doing… oh my God.”

“Hi,” Chat said, holding his freshly-bloodied arm to his chest. “So, I hear you're pretty good with stitches.”

\---

Marinette stared at him, trying to process the image in front of her. Chat was standing there, bloody again, dying again like before, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop it. _The cure should have worked why didn't it work oh God Chat please don't die on me_ \--“This--I'm dreaming, right?” she said. “Just… having a nightmare, yeah. The cure worked, everything’s fine--”

“Aww, does Princess dream about me?” Chat interjected. God _damn_ him, standing there bleeding and still wearing that _ridiculous_ smile.

But it was quivering. Chat, she realized, was in pain, and he was trying to keep up a brave face--to reassure _her_.

“Get inside,” Marinette said. There wasn't even a decision; it was just what was obvious, what needed to be done. “I'll get my sewing kit.”

Chat slid through the trapdoor, whisper-quiet, still cradling his arm. “Is there somewhere I can sit?” he asked. “I don't want to get blood on any of your furniture.”

Marinette glared at him. “You're literally covered in blood, and you're worried about my furniture?”

Chat’s eyes seemed to wander about the room, focusing on nothing in particular. “I've bled worse,” he said. “I can take losing it more than your room can take being doused in it.”

Despite his words, he was swaying, barely on his feet. Marinette swallowed, fighting down the panic that threatened to take her words away--he needed her to be Ladybug right now, not clumsy, cowardly Marinette. “Sit wherever,” she said, grabbing him by the shoulders and easing him onto the chaise. “I'll get the needles.” She rushed to her desk to grab her sewing kit--she had no idea which needles worked best on skin, and she didn't have time to find out.

“Um, Princess?”

She lifted her box of supplies, figuring Chat could tell her which needle to use. “What?”

“I can't take the suit off unless I transform, do you…”

Marinette facepalmed. _Oh goddammit, he’s right, why didn't I_ … “Hang on,” she said, opening the drawers of her desk and rooting around inside them. “There should be a mask in one of these.” She really, _really_ hoped that he didn't ask what the mask was for--how would she explain that she kept several in case she got caught detransforming and had to hide her identity? He didn't know she was Ladybug; she couldn't reveal that.

She handed him the mask--red with black polka-dots, an exact replica of her alternate persona’s.

He smiled down at the mask as he took it from her hands. “Looks like I was right last time,” he said weakly. “You _are_ part of her half.”

Marinette shook her head. “Put the mask on already, _Chaton_. I need to look at your arm.”

“It's the back, actually,” Chat said as he placed the mask over his face. He released his transformation, green light running across his body and revealing a boy in a gray, shapeless hoodie and jeans.

A tiny black creature spun itself out of Chat’s ring, which Marinette noticed had turned silver. “Your timing sucks, kid,” it grumbled. “You better have some me-damned cheese for me.”

Chat--except not quite: something in the way he held himself had lost the cocky, obnoxious flirtation; he seemed… quieter, kinder--sighed. “Marinette, meet Plagg,” he said, exasperated. “You’ll get your cheese, Plagg, give us a minute please?”

The tiny cat-thing--Plagg--harrumphed. “Fine,” it croaked. “I'll just go sit in the corner then.”

Marinette watched it fly off. “Is that yours?” she said. “It's… adorable.”

“He gets considerably less so when you have to put up with him every day,” he said. “Don't get me wrong, I love him, but--”

Marinette didn't hear the rest. She'd turned around to find that Chat had shucked off his hoodie, revealing an exquisitely crafted set of abdominals--oh god, they looked like something Venus had crafted out of white chocolate…

Then she realized that they were covered in scars.

“C-Chat?” she said, her eyes growing wide. “Where did all of these scars come from?”

Chat smiled as he turned around, but it was a sad smile--the north didn't reach his eyes. “Battle scars.”

“Shouldn't the Miraculous Cure have healed these?”

“My powers and her powers… counteract. Sometimes when I get injured really badly, it… stays around for a while.”

“The stitching on these is awful.”

“Well, it’s not like I ever had any first aid training.”

“You did this _yourself_?”

He nodded, his eyes closed.

“Are those… all from akuma battles?”

“No,” he said, glancing down at his wrists. “Some of those I made myself.”

She gasped. “Wait, do you mean…?”

Chat nodded. “I… used to… hurt myself. Before I became Chat Noir.”

Marinette's voice came out as a whisper. “Why?”

Chat shrugged. “I'm not sure, really… I guess it was because everything in my life felt so fake, you know? Nobody cared about _me_ , just about the image I was projecting. I wanted to feel _something_. Even if it was something bad.” He sighed. “Now that I think about it, I was probably also trying to get back at my dad. I had to be perfect all the time, you know? So I made something imperfect, something he couldn't hide.”

“You hated your father that much?”

“...I… never thought of it like that.” He pursed his lips. “But… yeah. I think I do.”

“No one should have to hate their parents.”

“Well, I do have my caretaker. She's… the closest thing to a mother I have, anymore.” He twisted his arms, looking over the faded lines that ran down his forearms. “She showed me how to use makeup to hide the scars.”

“You said… you said ‘used to.’ What changed?”

“I became Chat Noir. And… I met her.” Chat closed his eyes with a gentle smile. “She was the first person who made me feel… made me feel like I was worth something. Like I didn't need to bleed to feel. And like… like pain wasn't the only thing I _could_ feel.”

“You really do love her, don't you.”

“With everything I am.”

\-------------------------

Chat--no, Adrien--no, Chat--whatever, whoever, it was all the same--lay on Marinette’s chaise lounge, letting himself drift off to sleep. She'd insisted he stay the night once he tried to stand and had collapsed to his knees instead, and he'd found himself unable to argue with her. She'd also insisted he take the bed, so he'd snuck over to her chaise as soon as she'd left the room.

Half-asleep as he was, he still heard her enter the room, still heard her groan as she saw he'd relocated. Then giggle.

She came up to him and kissed him, softly, on the forehead. “Night, Kitty,” she said.

Adrien went to sleep purring.


	6. The Smallest Acts of Heroes

Marinette was distracted during class the next morning. That wasn't that unusual--she'd always been a bit of a daydreamer, and putting Adrien directly in front of her hadn't really helped. But today, she was thinking about something else.

On any other day, she'd have been sketching clothing designs, or Adrien (with little hearts), or simply aimless doodling. But today, her notebook was filled with the same design, repeated over and over: the criss-cross of scars on Chat Noir's torso. It stayed frozen in her mind's eye, carved into her brain like the gash of a red-hot carving knife. The horror of that moment, of realizing that every hit he took was still painted across his skin and the thought that he _still took them anyway_...

She had to do something, or her kitty was going to self-destruct. He was almost too willing to get hurt. It wasn't just to protect Ladybug, either--she'd seen what he'd shown her, on his wrists. He wanted to hurt, and Chat Noir gave him the chance to do so.

"Hey girl, what are you drawing?" Alya whispered, nudging her arm. "Is that a pattern for a new dress or something?"

Marinette looked down and saw it again, the subtle lines of the scars that covered Chat Noir's chest, independent of the body below them, scrawled across the thin blue lines of her notebook. "Uh... no," she whispered back. "It's just a random pattern?"

Alya shrugged. "Doesn't look THAT random," she said, squinting for a closer look. "It's the same thing, repeated over and over again." Her squint turned suspicious. " _Exactly_ the same thing."

Marinette bit her lip. "Sorry. Just worried."

"Mlle. Cesaire!" Madame Bustier said, snapping her fingers. "Are we boring you?"

Alya gulped. "No, Mme. Bustier," she said.

"Good," Bustier replied. "Then please leave Mlle. Dupain-Cheng alone."

Alya settled back into her seat, chastened. But Marinette didn't have the wherewithal to feel relieved at the cessation of her friend's inquiry. Because, while her attention was on her teacher, something had caught her eye.

She wasn't completely sure what, but something was drawing her attention to Adrien. And not in the usual "oh-my-go-it's-my-crush-remember-to-breathe" way. Something was off. Something... worrying.

Adrien brought his hand up to scratch his head, running his fingers through his glorious blond mane, and she saw it. Ghostly lines on the inside of his wrist. Almost unnoticeable, but...

But she'd seen lines like those before. On Chat Noir.

Was Adrien _hurting himself_?

Class continued, but she heard none of it. Her mind played back over all the things that Chat Noir had told her last night: _I wanted to feel **something**. Even if it was bad._

She was suddenly struck with the realization that, for all the stalking she did, for all that she knew about his life... she didn't really know much about Adrien. She knew the image of the model, she knew the image he projected around his friends, but... but what if that wasn't the real him? What if he was... what if it was a mask? How much pain was Adrien hiding?

What if Adrien was like Chat Noir?

***

Marinette spent her lunch break on the internet, looking for something very specific.

She'd seen a new side of Adrien, and it worried her. She'd always known that Chat Noir had a habit of hiding his pain, that he preferred to shield himself behind a joke and a smile when he was hurting inside, but she knew him well enough to be able to help him even when he tried to push her out. Adrien wasn't like Chat. Adrien was better at hiding it. She wasn't sure if _anyone_  knew, realized how bad he was hurting. And she couldn't abide that. Damn her crush, she was going to talk to Adrien. She was Ladybug, she was Class President, and she was _damn_  well going to help a friend in need if she could.

***

Adrien had had a late night and an early morning. Like before, he’d made it back to his house before 5, the next morning just in time to get about a half hour of sleep before Nathalie woke him up for school. He wanted nothing more than to see Marinette, to apologize for last night… even if she wouldn't understand why he was apologizing…

He was very surprised, then, when SHE came up to HIM after classes were finished for the day. "Come with me," she said, wrapping her fingers, vise-like, around his wrist and dragging him in her wake.

"Dude, what...?" Nino said, but Adrien couldn't manage more than a weak smile and a wave before Marinette had tugged him away from the door. The last thing he saw was Alya, halfway standing, giving them both a thumbs-up with a grin almost as wide as her face.

Marinette pulled him along, saying absolutely nothing until they came to an empty hallway. The entire way, Adrien wondered what he'd done to make her act like this--she hated him so much that she couldn't stand to be in the same room with him, and now she had a lock on his wrist, stomping determinedly through the school as if she was taking him to an execution. He felt sweat begin to pool in his armpits. This was the most Ladybug thing he'd ever seen from her concerning him, but he was absolutely terrified. How angry with him WAS she?

She looked both ways down the hallway, continuing to speak as she craned her neck--then, as soon as she was certain that nobody was in earshot, she turned to him.

"Adrien," she squeaked, and there it was again, that obvious desire to be anywhere but near him. "Have you--have you been cutting yourself?"

That was not at all what he had been expecting.

"I... what?"

She gripped how wrist and flipped it over, baring the scars that he'd done so well to hide--the scars that had faded so well that nobody had noticed them in years. "The lines on your wrist," she said. "A friend of mine once showed me something similar, said he'd been cutting himself." He knew which friend THAT was, of course. "Have you?"

Adrien sighed. "Not for a long time." Of course. She was angry at him.

Marinette released a breath that he could have sworn was too large for her body, and he could see the way the tension left her tiny frame. "Oh, thank God," she said. "Look, I--I want you to do something for me, okay?"

Do something? For HER? _Anything, My Lady._ "Of course."

Marinette looked down at her feet, and suddenly, she was back. "O-Okay, so, I um... I spent lunch break looking at better ways to manage those kinds of urges, and... Not!" She held up her palms defensively. "Not like in a creepy way or anything, haha I swear! I was just... I didn't want you to..." She took a deep breath. "If you ever feel like that again, just... hold an ice cube against your inner wrist. Okay?"

"An ice cube?"

Marinette frantically nodded her head, pigtails bouncing. "Yeah. Apparently that's a good way to relieve that kind of stress and get the pain without hurting yourself? You know, in case you need to... well, not need to, but haha you know what I--"

"Okay," Adrien said, cutting her off mid-sentence. "I will. I promise."

Marinette heaved a sigh of relief. "Okay good. Thank you. Thank you so much." She stared into his eyes, and he could feel himself getting lost in them all over again--there was that fire, that drive, that NEED to help people, even the people she hated. Even him. He glanced down at her lips, at the soft curve of her mouth, and wondered what it would be like to feel her lips on his own. She reached out to touch his wrists, fingertips running across his scars. "I... I care about you, Adrien. I care about you a lot. And I don't want to see you getting hurt, even if it's you that's doing the hurting. Okay?" She looked at him, her eyes sad and shining, and in that moment he would have promised her anything. He would have given up being Chat Noir entirely in that moment, if she'd asked. Instead, what she asked was, "In the future... talk to me when you're feeling bad, okay?" She handed him a slip of paper. "That's my... that's my phone number. If you ever need someone to talk to..." She clasped her hands behind her back and shuffled her feet. "I'll be available." She blinked. "Not...! I mean, available like you can talk to me, not..."

Adrien's eyes swelled shut, and before he knew it, he had crossed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around Marinette, hugging her hard enough to lift her off the ground, hard enough that he felt the stitching on his back stretch, but the pain wasn't important. Not right now. " _Thank you,_ " he whispered into her shoulder as tears pooled around his nose.

Marinette made a noise that was halfway between joy and discomfort and reached up to pat him on the head. "It's okay, Adrien," she said. "I mean, we're friends, right?"

He set her down on the ground and wiped his eyes. "We are?"

Her lower lip quivered as she stared at him, playing with a twist of raven hair that had come loose from her pigtails. "...Aren't we?"

Oh god, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her SO BAD. Instead, all he said was, "Y-yeah. Of course we're friends!"

"Okay," she said, patting his shoulder. "I gotta go, but... call me whenever you need to talk, okay?"

He nodded.

She gave him a quick hug. "Feel better, Adrien" she said, then turned to leave. She waved as she went around the corner. He stood, frozen, staring in her wake.

_We're friends, right?_

_I care about you, Adrien. I care about you a lot._

Was it possible? Did Marinette... not hate him?

But why was she so awkward around him? Why did she never want to speak to him? Why did she always try to flee whenever he came near?

Maybe she didn't mean it personally. Maybe she just meant it in the general way--she cared about everyone, after all. She even cared about Chloé. Even if she couldn't stand him, she still cared. Still wanted him to think she was his friend. Still wanted him to be okay. That was Marinette. That was his Lady.

And maybe he could pretend that she'd meant it the way he'd heard it. Maybe that would be good enough.

He held the slip of paper she'd given him to his lips. She'd given him her phone number. He'd text her tonight.

He hoped beyond hope that she'd text back.

\-------------------------

Before and after, like cause and effect.

Neither of them knew it, but that was the moment "before" ended.

It would be quite a while before "after" began. Some secrets, after all, were too dangerous to keep.


	7. Night Terrors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Description of an anxiety attack. Skip to below the first cut if you want to avoid.

_You killed her. You killed our daughter._

_With no Ladybug, how will Paris protect itself from—_

_How could you let me die, Chat?_

_**HOW COULD YOU LET ME DIE?** _

”Chat! Chat, wake up!”

His whole body was shaking, shuddering, as he suddenly came to his senses in the middle of her plush bed. He could feel his teeth clenched, the anguished scream trapped behind the ivory. She was shaking him. Her voice terrified. Desperate.

She. Was it her? He’d killed her, watched her die. It was... it was...

He sobbed, curling into himself, hugging his knees to his chest. Some part of him remembered not to scream, not to wake her parents, not to vent the agony that was filling his being and hold it in, bottle it up, force it down into a roiling mass deep in his gut. His breath came in ragged gasps—he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t feel his fingers. He couldn’t—too much. Too much. Too much too much too much toomuchtoomuchtoomuch...

Distantly, he felt Marinette touch his shoulder. Hesitant. Unsure. But...

But she was _alive_.

Chat released a gasp of air that tore through his windpipe like broken glass, a sob that wracked his whole body with agonizing relief. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, to reassure her, but his words caught in his diaphragm, and he floundered, still curled up tight, still unable to say or do anything except wait for the sirens to quiet his brain.

And Marinette, miraculously, understood.

”Shhh, shh, shh,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around him. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”

_I’m here._

_Are you real?_ he wanted to say, but his lungs betrayed him again, and the words wouldn’t come.

”Nightmare?” she said, her voice soft.

He nodded. Mouth clenched shut. Lips sealed tight. It was all he could do.

”What happened?”

He opened his mouth, and finally found his voice. “Cataclysm misfire,” he croaked.

”Oh, no,” Marinette said, wrapping his head in her arms. “Shhh, shh, shh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Chat collapsed into her arms and cried.

* * *

It was nearly half an hour before he was able to find his voice, before the shaking finally subsided to the point where he could speak without being wracked with sobs. He sat on her chaise, blanket clutched tight around his body, staring at the floor, and spoke.

”I kill her, some nights,” he said, his voice flat. Couldn’t let any emotion through or it would come out as a scream. “Sometimes I just don’t move fast enough to save her.”

”And this happens every night?” Marinette was sitting in her computer chair, legs crossed beneath her, her pink flannel pajamas scrunching invitingly under her knees.

Chat gave a quick nod, not trusting himself to take his eyes from her carpet. “Nearly,” he said. “Other nights, I kill someone else, and... and she sends me away.”

”Do you really think she’d abandon you that easily?”

”If I killed someone?” Chat gave a hollow laugh. “Well, it hasn’t happened yet, and how am I supposed to ask?” He swallowed. “It helps if I think of it as... training.”

Marinette glared at him. “Training?”

”For if it happens in real life.”

Marinette sighed and unfolded her legs, toes pressing lightly against the floor. “Chat, this isn’t good,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having night terrors?”

Chat swallowed. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he whispered.

”...Does Ladybug know?”

 _She does now._ “No,” he said. “I... she wants to keep things professional. When could I have told her?”

”Don’t you have patrol?”

Chat shook his head. “She doesn’t need to deal with my problems...” Wait. Shit. He’d just... Marinette knew. So _Ladybug_ knew. He’d never meant to...

His breath hitched again.

And suddenly, there was Marinette, kneeling next to him on the chaise and wrapping her arms around his torso. “You’re partners, Kitty,” she said, stroking his back. “She worries about you, you know.”

”I know,” he sobbed into Marinette’s shoulder. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

Then Chat made his first mistake.

”You’re the most important person in my life, you know,” he murmured.

Her hands froze on his back. “Other than Ladybug, you mean.”

Chat swallowed as he realized what, exactly, he’d said—what he’d almost given away. “Yeah,” he replied, thankful for the dodge she’d provided him with, even if it was unintentional. “Aside from Ladybug.”

* * *

❤️ **Adrien** ❤️: hey

 **Mari** : hi! Everything okay?

❤️ **Adrien** ❤️: Yeah! Everything’s good.

❤️ **Adrien** ❤️: I just wanted to let you know that the ice thing worked.

 **Mari** : it did? That’s great!

 **Mari** : I wasn’t sure

❤️ **Adrien** ❤️: Really? But you’re always so certain about things...

**Marinette is typing...**

_Certain? Me? Have you seen how I act around_

_Are you sure we’re talking about the same Marine_

**Mari** : hahaha, have you met me?

❤️ **Adrien** ❤️ **is typing...**

_You know, sometimes I’m not sure_

_Come on, My Lady, it’s_

❤️ **Adrien** ❤️: You’re always so incredible, though. Remember the class president elections? When you saved everyone?

 **Mari** : I mean

 **Mari** : someone had to do it

❤️ **Adrien** ❤️: Yeah, but you were the one who did.

 **Mari** : Come on, that was one incident

❤️ **Adrien** ❤️: One incident in a pattern.

❤️ **Adrien** ❤️ **is typing...**

_There’s a reason I’m absolutely crazy about you._

He didn’t hit send.

* * *

“ _You’re always so incredible, though_.”

Marinette could feel her heart squeezing up on her ribs for the entire bus ride. The fact that Adrien was texting her was enough to drive her to distraction on any normal day, but she’d never realized he thought so highly of her.

All the times she’d made a fool of herself in front of him, or utterly lost her composure, or freaked out and run... and he still thought she was incredible. He still thought she was _incredible_.

It was enough to make her jump for joy, and she would have if she hadn’t been worried about disturbing the building’s other tenants.

“Are you sure about this, Marinette?” Tikki said.

”Sure about what?” she said, glancing up from her phone, to meet the fondly judgmental eyes of her Kwami. “Oh! Right!” Chat Noir. What she was here for.

“Adrien again?” Tikki said.

Marinette nodded. “Anyway, yes, I’m sure. Sure as I can be.” She locked her phone and slid it back into her purse, then rubbed her arms—nerves telling her to move, move, but nowhere to go. “Chat is in trouble, and there’s literally no one else to ask.”

Tikki smiled. “You really care about him.”

”He’s my best friend,” Marinette said, smiling back. “And he’s done way more for me.” Then she turned to knock on the familiar door.

”Hello, Marinette!” came the familiar voice of Master Fu. “Please, come in!”

She opened the door to enter, for the third time, into Master Fu’s spacious massage parlor—as peaceful and welcoming as it had ever been, the scrolls on the walls and the bamboo designs across the space filling the room with a warm sense of comfort. The record player activated in the corner as the small green turtle shoved the switch with his entire body, then flirted up towards Tikki and Marinette. “Hello,” it croaked. “We’ve just put the tea on.”

”Thank you, Wayzz,” Marinette said. “Is there some for Tikki?”

Wayzz smiled beatifically. “Of course.”

”Marinette!” Master Fu exclaimed, bustling out of the kitchen with a bowl on a tray. “I wanted to try to make your uncle’s soup, but Wayzz tells me I have the recipe wrong. Could you try it for me?”

”Of course!” Marinette said with a smile. She stepped carefully around the mat towards the kitchen. “Do you have a spoon I could use?”

Fu handed her a small porcelain soup spoon with an inscrutable smile.

She took it, dipped it in the soup, and raised it to her lips, then—

“Uh, Master Fu, I don’t know what this is, but it’s not Celestial Soup.”

”You mean Marinette Soup,” Fu said with another—altogether more mischievous—smile.

”Yeah, it’s not that either.” Marinette’s mouth twisted. “Sorry.”

Fu waved her off. “It’s quite all right,” he said. “It is through failure that we learn to succeed, after all!” He turned back to the kitchen and laid the tray on the table. “Come,” he said, sitting down in the chair, “tell me what’s on your mind.”

Marinette sighed as she sat down across from him. “Well,” she began, “it’s about Chat Noir.”

Fu held up a hand. “I must remind you that I will not divulge any details about his identity.”

”Of course not.” Marinette glanced at the tea kettle, determined not to jump when it started whistling. “He told me he’s been having nightmares.”

”Nightmares in which he misuses his power?” Fu said, taking a sip from a spoonful of soup. Then he spat in disgust. “Ugh, this is terrible!” he said. “How were you so polite when you tried it?”

Marinette shrugged. “Papa likes to experiment in the bakery,” she said. “I have a lot of practice.” Then she leaned forward. “How did you know about the nightmares?”

Fu snatched a napkin from the table and wiped his mouth. “Each Miraculous requires a certain set of personality traits to use them well,” he said. “To be effective, the Ladybug of Creation requires a kind heart, a clever mind, and a courageous soul.” He smiled, his eyes twinkling. “That’s why I chose _you_.”

Marinette blushed.

”But the Black Cat of Destruction requires something else entirely,” he said. “It is, in many ways, the most dangerous Miraculous—as many a poorly-chosen Black Cat can attest. When misused, it causes untold destruction on a scale that not even Hawkmoth has been yet able to match.”

Marinette recoiled at the thought—her goofy, flirty, broken kitty atop a city on fire. And smiling.

”That is why his Miraculous requires a wielder who would rather let _themselves_ burn than allow their power to burn others,” Fu continued. “Destruction must be tightly controlled—”

The teakettle screamed.

Marinette shrieked, but Fu only stood to pour the tea into the two waiting cups. “Sometimes I suspect that Plagg only pretends to be lazy and apathetic to test his wielders for those exact qualities,” he said. “But, then again, maybe he simply is a _zhū tóu_. Hard to tell with that one.” He placed the tea on the table before her and gestured for her to drink. “You and your partner are two of the best I have ever seen. He is a match for you in many ways.” 

”You saw what happened with Glassblower, right?” Marinette said, taking the tea in a delicate grip and blowing on the surface to cool it down. “I’m beginning to worry that he burns himself too easily.”

”If it helps,” Fu said, taking a sip of his tea, “the Miracle Cure _can_ bring him back to life if he dies.”

Marinette’s hand began to tremble. “Th-thank you,” she said, her voice wavering. “That—that—it’s—”

”A relief?” Fu said with a quirked eyebrow. “I imagine it will be as much a relief to him to learn that you are immune to Cataclysm while you wear the suit.”


	8. Hanahaki

“Are you sure about this?”

”Hell no,” Ladybug said. “So do it before I change my mind.”

Chat stared at his claw. When she’d told him that she was immune to Cataclsym, he was ecstatic—but something in him hadn’t quite been able to accept it, and she’d noticed pretty much immediately. Hence, the single scariest moment of both of their lives.

”What if it doesn’t work?” he croaked, flexing his fingers.

She trapped his hand between hers and raised his palm to her cheek. “Hey,” she said. “It’ll be fine.” She smiled, but her voice was still shaking.

”I... I don’t...”

”No more nightmares, Chat,” she said. “We’re gonna make it happen.”

He drew back his hand and swallowed. “CATACLYSM!” he cried, swiping the black fire at her.

His hand connected, and his heart skipped a beat as he felt the familiar discharge of power that meant it had been used. Oh god, he’d just killed—!

The blackness dissipated harmlessly against the red suit, gathering around the black polka-dots and fizzling out in the center of each circle.

All the air escaped from Chat’s lungs in a gasp as every muscle went slack at once. He and Ladybug collapsed against each other simultaneously, and he felt tears wet her cheek.

“It worked,” she gasped. “It worked!”

He reached up and caressed her face. “Thank you, My Lady,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, and Chat could swear he felt a spark pass between them before Ladybug pulled away and rolled onto the rooftop. “Can we just... stay here, for a bit?” she said. “No patrol tonight.”

”Yes please,” he said. He rolled into his stomach, content to watch the rise and fall of her chest as she continued breathing, even after a full-on strike from a Cataclysm.

Their breathing deepened in unison, and Chat found himself relaxing in a way he hadn’t since Dark Cupid, when he’d first realized how easy it was to turn him against his lady.

After a moment, he turned to look at her. “You, uh... want to test the other thing?”

” _Mon Dieu_ , no,” she laughed, nervously. “That is something I’d rather _never_  have to find out for sure.”

Chat stared up at the sunset, contemplative. “I don’t know,” he said. “You may need it someday.”

Ladybug rolled onto her stomach and flicked him on the nose. “You’ll just have to promise not to die on me, then.”

”I’ll... do my best,” he said.

”Hmmph.” Ladybug rolled back onto her back. “I suppose that’s the best I’m getting from you, isn’t it.”

 _I will always sacrifice myself for you._ He didn’t say it, but he didn’t need to. He knew she heard it anyway.

She was quiet, staring at the side of the building across the street, before she twisted her head to look at him. “You should probably get somewhere safe before you detransform,” she said. “You’re down to two paws.”

He raised his hand to look at the ring, and she was right—one toe was left on the paw print. It hit him again how unfair it was that he knew her identity, that he knew everything about her, and she didn’t even know his name. Didn’t know how much he loved her. “Are you sure you don’t want to know?” he said.

She pushed him, rolling him onto his stomach. ”Chat, you know our identities have to remain secret,” she said.

 _But yours isn’t,_ his mind protested, but that changed nothing. He knew she’d hate him even more if he told her he already knew.

Instead, he swallowed. “Okay,” he said, unsheathing his baton from his back. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

”Sure,” she grinned. “Gotta make up for missing patrol, right?”

”Absolutely,” Chat said, then he turned and leaped off the building.

* * *

❤️ **Adrien❤️:** hey

 **Mari:** hi!

 **Mari:** what’s up?

❤️ **Adrien❤️:** Just checking to make sure you’re safe—the news is saying there’s an Akuma near your house.

 **Mari:** oh! Thanks for the warning

 **Mari:** I was wondering where all these flowers were coming from

❤️ **Adrien❤️:** Stay safe, okay?

 **Mari:** Not a problem

 **Mari:** wasn’t planning on going outside for a bit anyway

 _There_ , Adrien thought. _Warning sent. Meet you there._

* * *

Chat Noir had a sinking feeling about this one when he saw Chloé on the ground, coughing and spitting up flowers. Sabrina was holding her, trying to help her breathe, but it wasn’t doing much—the trail of pink petals had spewed clear across the street.

Chat landed hard and at a run, the metal of his boots screeching against the pavement as he slid to a halt next to them. “The Akuma,” he gasped, fingers mentally crossed. “What was their name?” _Please no, please no, please no—_

“Hana-something?” Sabrina squeaked in surprise at his sudden appearance. Chloé said nothing, pressing her palms against her mouth to try and hold back the tide of flowers, but the petal-laden vomit came anyway, petunias forcing their way past her fingers.

 _Petunias_ , Chat thought off-handedly, thinking back the the days of his Wikipedia trawling. _Resentment and anger._ ”Was it Hanahaki?” he said, hoping against hope that he was wrong.

Sabrina nodded, not taking her eyes from Chloé. “What’s happening to her?” she said, terror in her voice.

”It’s a disease,” Chat said. “Unrequited Love is turning her lungs into flowers.”

”Oh god!” Sabrina wailed, wrapping her arms around Chloé and pulling her right. “We have to find Adrien!”

Chloé shook her head, her eyes closed, melting into Sabrina’s arms.

Sabrina gasped. “It’s me!” she said. “I’m so sorry, Chloé! I should have said something earlier, I should have told you—”

”Not. Helping,” Chloé rasped. “Not. You.”

Of course Chloé knew about Hanahaki—he’d told her sometime back, though he was a bit surprised that she remembered. Still, the look of pure horror in her eyes as she stared at the trail of petals dripping from her mouth struck him to his core.

Sabrina turned to Chat. “What’s she saying?”

”She... needs the object of her affections to return them,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “But...”

“Ladybug,” Chloé gasped, before collapsing out of the hands of a shocked Sabrina, flopping onto the ground. “Need... Ladybug.”

Sabrina gasped. “You don’t... love me?” she said.

Then she coughed, and a single yellow petal escaped from her mouth.

She and Chat both stared at it in horror.

He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Were you hit?” he said, desperate.

She nodded, her mouth shut tight. “I was fine, though! Until—” Suddenly, she hacked, doubling over, and a full-size yellow flower, the shape of a cob of corn, forced its way out of her mouth. Yellow Hyacinth. Jealousy.

”Until you found out Chloé didn’t love you back,” Chat finished. He readied his baton. Everything in him screamed to stay and help, to do _something_ , but there was nothing he could do except make this right.

”I’m going to go fix this,” he said, pulling Sabrina close against his chest. “I promise.”

* * *

There was nothing else he could do for them, and that thought burned him more than anything in his life ever had. There, in that moment, staring at the problem face-to-face, he knew he had to do _something_ —but there was nothing that could be done in that moment. The only thing he could do was find Ladybug, and help her fix it.

The problem was that Hanahaki disease fed on unrequited love, and the more crippling the love, the worse the disease got. He couldn’t afford to get hit, not when his feelings for his partner permeated down to the very core of his being. One shot, and he’d die in minutes at best.

He found Ladybug sprinting across the rooftops, following a trail of wilted roses and peonies, and landed beside her in a spray of petals at a dead run. “Evening, My Lady,” he puffed as he ran beside her. “Still the loveliest flower here.”

”Can the quips, Kitty,” Ladybug said with a smile, though her eyes didn’t stray from the alleyway ahead of them as they wound up to leap. “Superhero time.”

“As you wish,” he said, launching himself after her. Had she ever watched _The Princess Bride_? He’d have to suggest it next time he came over.

“The Akuma is making people cough flowers,” Ladybug said as they ran. “But it doesn’t work on everybody. I’m trying to figure out the pattern—”

”It’s unrequited love,” Chat interrupted. “The buried emotions are literally turning their lungs into flowers.”

Ladybug paused. “Huh,” she said. “Good work, _Chaton_ —”

Suddenly, behind her, a woman dressed in yellow launched herself upward out of the alley in a blizzard of mismatched flowers, aiming some sort of wand at Ladybug.

A very grim calculus arranged itself in Chat Noir’s mind at that moment. He knew what Hanahaki disease did. He knew how it would affect him. One shot would incapacitate him for the rest of the fight, maybe even kill him, and Ladybug had been very explicit in telling him not to risk himself again.

Ladybug, on the other hand, would probably be okay. He’d never observed her to have feelings for anyone, and even if she was, everyone he knew was in love with her, either as Ladybug or as Marinette. So on the off-chance she DID have feelings for someone, they’d be requited just fine. She was safe.

Even still, he almost stepped forward and took the blast, until he heard her voice in his mind:

_**I CANNOT STAND BACK AND WATCH YOU DIE.** _

He faltered. And in that moment, Hanahaki struck.

The sickly yellow blast splashed harmlessly off Ladybug, and Chat allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. He unsheathed his baton and pressed the button on the side, preparing to extend it and take a swing at the Akuma—

Only to watch in horror as his Lady suddenly doubled over in pain, a single yellow daffodil petal falling from her lips.


	9. Let the Flame Burn Down

In the half-second before the blow struck, Ladybug had enough time for exactly two thoughts. The first was that she was greatful that Chat hadn’t tried to block this one for her—she’d never been sure whether his flirtiness came from real feelings for her, or just part of his natural personality. Either way, him getting hit with something that fed on unrequited love didn’t seem safe.

The second thought was that she hoped that Adrien did, in fact, love her back.

Then there was no more time for thoughts, nor was there any coherence for them, because all she could do was fail to scream as vines punctured her chest, ripping through the material of her suit as they grew outward from her lungs. She scrabbled at them, her fingers useless from the sudden lack of oxygen, unable to breathe through the petals that filled her windpipe. Suddenly there was no Ladybug, no Marinette, no Chat Noir and no Akuma. There was only Adrien, the flowers, and the worst pain she was even capable of feeling.

She vomited flowers across the rooftop, trying to clear her lungs, but the plants were IN her lungs, the roots chewing through flesh and air with equal abandon. Panicked, she finally grasped an exposed root, one that jutted out from her chest, and tried to tug—only for the sharp gasp of pain to finally reach her vocal chords.

She screamed, so loudly that she could be heard for blocks, and collapsed. Her body wanted to pant, to replenish oxygen, but nothing came—the air whistled down her petal-filled throat, through the holes in her chest, as her fingers clawed at the concrete. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t—everything was pain, everything was red, blood-spattered dandelions and Adrien turning away and oh god oh god oh god—

She felt a pair of leather-clad arms wrap around her and lift her up, before finally, mercifully, it stopped. Everything stopped.

* * *

Chat Noir didn’t know what to do.

The Akuma was gone. Vanished. He didn’t see which direction she’d gone, too busy frozen as he watched his Lady convulse with pain, as roots tore through her flesh and cracked her ribs. As she’d collapsed to the ground in a pile of bloody flowers. He’d leaped forward to catch her, but too late—she’d already hit the ground by the time he reached her.

He gathered her up in his arms, his breath short, his throat tight, staring down at her fragile form as she gasped for breaths that weren’t coming, her mouth opening and closing, useless, as she convulsed in his arms. What was he supposed to do?

He had to find whoever she was in love with. He had to find them, and bring her to them, and—

Nathanael. No. He’d demonstrated his feelings already and she’d turned him down. Luka? No, the reaction was too strong, she’d only met him once, even _Sabrina_ hadn’t been this bad. Alya? Chloé? Nino had been insistent that she hadn’t liked him back, and he’d never seen any evidence that she liked girls—but then, he’d never seen any evidence that she liked ANYONE until now. How much had she been forcing down? _Who was she in love with?_

His breath was desperate, gasping, even as hers failed again and again. She was dying in front of him, and he could do nothing to stop it. It was—it was—

_It was like a nightmare,_ he realized.And suddenly, he knew what to do.

_The surgery._

Hanahaki disease could be surgically removed from the lungs, at the cost of destroying the patient’s ability to feel love. It would leave a hole in their hearts, one that could never be filled... but the Miraculous Cure could fix anything from their Akuma battles. He had to try.

”I’m sorry, My Lady,” he whispered as he laid her gently on the rooftop, then reached back his hand. “ _Cataclysm_!” he cried as he wrapped his fingers around the roots that protruded from her chest.

The plants shriveled and blackened, dropping from her chest, leaving behind a series of holes that slowly began to seal shut. And Ladybug—Marinette—finally breathed in a tremendous, tortured gulp of air.

* * *

Oxygen returned, and with it, clarity.

As she breathed in sweet fire down her throat, she wondered why she’d been so obsessed with Adrien. Why she’d cared so much. Why she cared so much about anything, really—Alya, Nino, fashion, her classmates, even her parents. The thought of them slid off in a way it never had before, and something about that... hurt. Something about it felt wrong. She tried to fix the image of her parents in her mind, tried to focus on what was missing, but she it wouldn’t come. Just a dull ache, somewhere beneath her ribs, where her lungs met her diaphragm. She didn’t like it, so she pushed the image away and opened her eyes.

Chat stared down at her, his own green eyes full of concern. Something about that snagged in he back of her mind, and she felt the same ache as before, but it slid off like water as she pushed herself into a sitting position. He could stop looking at her like that. She was fine to keep going; the Akuma would be taken care of soon.

“Which way did she go?” she croaked. Hmm. That was annoying. She hoped it would go away soon.

”I... I didn’t see,” Chat responded.

Ladybug’s lips twisted downward, her expression cold. Something about that felt wrong, unfamiliar maybe, but she couldn’t quite say why. “We’ll have to follow the trail of flowers, then,” she said, climbing to her feet and beginning to swing her yo-yo, dashing toward the edge of the building.

She stopped when she realized Chat wasn’t following her. She turned back to look at him; he hadn’t moved, staring after her with a look that she couldn’t quite describe. Pained, maybe?

”Come on, Chat!” she snapped. “We need to go!”

Then, without bothering to wait for him, she turned and leaped off the building’s edge.

* * *

Chat could barely describe the relief he’d felt when his Lady had finally taken breath again... but then she opened her eyes, and he realized, horrified, exactly what his panic had done.

The fire behind her eyes had turned cold. Marinette was gone, and the girl who was left behind couldn’t properly be called Ladybug any longer.

When she stood and began to chase after the Akuma, it didn’t even occur to her to reassure him, to let him know she was okay. She didn’t think to ask for reassurance either. Just anger and efficiency. He’d burned a part of her out, the greatest part, and he could feel the panic rising—if the Miraculous Cure couldn’t fix this, he’d never forgive himself.

* * *

Chat body-checked Alya, slamming her out of the way of Hanahaki’s blast. He knew she was with Nino, but he’d already fucked up once with Ladybug and he wasn’t going to risk anyone else getting hit on his watch.

Ladybug, meanwhile, didn’t care. She just kept advancing, regardless of how many civilians got hurt, heedless of her own safety—not that it mattered: each shot from Hanahaki’s wand splashed off her without any effect. Chat knew that he was a liability here, so he stayed out of her way, opting to protect the civilians instead.

He could see her growing angrier and angrier every time she looked at him, as if the sight of him was hurting her but she couldn’t tell why. She hadn’t even spared Alya a glance this time, shoving her off, muttering about distractions.

”Is she okay?” Alya asked as she picked herself up off the pavement.

“She got hit,” he said, staring after Ladybug. “I made a temporary fix, but it’s having some side effects.”

Alya gasped. “Ladybug is in love with someone else?” she said.

Chat flashed a rueful grin. “I know,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it either.” He spun his staff in his hand, dashing off after the Lady and the Akuma, ready to mitigate the destruction in their wake.

”Get back!” Hanahaki yelled, firing blast after blast of sickly yellow energy at Ladybug, to no avail. “Get—why isn’t this working?”

Ladybug said nothing, only scowling as she leaped off the walls toward Hanahaki, getting closer with every bounce.

Hanahaki grinned. “Then I’ll just have to settle for a distraction,” she said, and leveled her wand at Chat.

There wasn’t time to blink. There wasn’t time to move.

He choked. Pain burst through his chest as he felt his lungs turn to mush; his throat closed as petals began to crawl with agonizing lethargy up his windpipe. All he could see was her, was Ladybug—and she hadn’t even so much as glanced backward, even as Hanahaki fired.

Instead, she snapped out her yo-yo and smashed the wand against the ground, then tossed her weapon skyward. “Miraculous Ladybug!” she cried, devoid of her usual passion and enthusiasm: all that was in her voice now was cold, dry frustration.

The countless ladybugs poured over everything, and Chat felt a momentary touch of pure agony as the flowers ripped from his lungs before the cool absence of pain. Flowers vanished along the road, and all over the city the sounds of coughing, of choking, sputtered to a halt. They’d done it. They’d won.

But was she—?

Ladybug turned towards him, her eyes wide and brimming with tears, and collapsed into his arms with a sob.

”Oh god,” she murmured, burying her face in his shoulder. “Oh god. My... my parents... I couldn’t even...”

Alya tapped Chat on the shoulder. “Hey,” she said. “You’re almost out of time.”

Ladybug pulled back, looked at Alya, then at Chat, her body trembling with shock and tears. Chat held up his ring and shrugged—no paws left. Less than a minute.

“We—we need to go,” Ladybug said. Almost to herself.

Chat nodded.

She wrapped one arm around Chat’s waist, and, with a haphazard unfurling of the other, she chucked the yo-yo over the roof of a nearby building, and she and Chat were yanked out of sight.


	10. Shellshock

Ladybug clutched her knees to her chest and tried to stop shaking.

There was too much to process at once. She felt violated, like something integral to her being had been ripped from her—and it HAD, even if temporarily, by her own partner. By the person she trusted most in all the world.

And yet if he hadn’t, she would have died. She knew that in her bones, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Chat had done what was necessary to save her life, even if the consequences had been horrific.

Yet all she could think was how the thought of her parents had slipped away from her without a reaction. How everything she’d cared about had vanished and she hadn’t been able, or even willing, to grab for them. How all that had been left of her was cold and rage.

Her suit—and the rooftop below her—was dotting with flecks of tears that she couldn’t bring herself to wipe from her face.

Chat was just around the corner—literally; they were both sitting on the same rooftop, backs against the corner of the same wall, just out of sight. His suit had fallen not a minute before, and she could hear the sounds of his gluttonous Kwami as it devoured whatever food he’d brought for it.

She wanted him to hold her. He was _right there_ , for God’s sake. And yet, she couldn’t. She couldn’t turn that corner, couldn’t look at him, not without revealing a secret she’d nearly given her life to protect on multiple occasions. She had to be content with listening to his breathing, with just knowing he was there.

She wondered if this is what it had felt like to be possessed by Dark Cupid; then she remembered that he’d told her he remembered nothing of the experience. A wave of resentment rose like bile in her throat—she remembered every part of today with crystal clarity. No matter how much she wanted the release of forgetting.

It wasn’t his fault, she knew, and it wasn’t fair to blame him. But he’d still done it. He’d still ripped out that part of her.

”What... happened, back there?” she said. “What did you do to me?”

Chay breathed in, then breathed out. “Hanahaki only has two treatments,” he said. “The cure is an expression of love from the person who you have feelings for, and that... well, that wasn’t an option.” He sucked in a breath, apparently through his teeth. “I didn’t even know you _had_ feelings for anyone until today.”

She tried not to hear the hurt in his voice as he said that, but it wasn’t something so easily ignored. He knew they weren’t for him. He knew that he wasn’t the one she loved.

”So what’s the other treatment?” she said, wrenching the conversation back on track.

”...Surgery,” he said. “The flowers have to be removed, but...” His voice hitched. “But it removes the patient’s capacity for love.”

 _The patient_. Like he wasn’t talking about her. Like this was someone else, some other girl who’d had flowers burned out of her lungs by magical fire.

”So you knew what would happen to me,” she said, her voice flat.

Chat said nothing. “Are you... mad at me?”

Ladybug hugged her knees to her chest. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know _what_ I am.”

* * *

” _Are_ you mad at him?” Tikki said, later, once they were alone in Marinette’s room.

”Mad?” Marinette said, clutching her cat pillow to her chest. “I’m—I’m furious! I’m... what he did to me... he tore me apart, Tikki!” She buried her face in the cat and sobbed. “He... he turned me inside out...!”

Tikki patted her cheek. “Oh, Marinette...”

”And if he hadn’t...” Marinette said, her eyes glassy as she stared in the general direction of her feet. “If he hadn’t, I’d be dead.”

”What are you going to do?” Tikki said, settling onto Marinette’s forearm.

”I don’t know,” Marinette whispered. “I don’t know.”

She stared at nothing. She couldn’t shake the horror at what she’d become during the attack, the thought of losing everything that mattered to her and being unable to even _care_.

But... that wasn’t Chat’s fault.

She sucked in her lips and made a decision. “I need to talk to him,” she said. “Tikki, spots on.”

* * *

 **Bugaboo** : H-Hewwo?

 **Minou** : My Lady!

 **Bugaboo** : we don’t have patrol 2nite, chat

 **Bugaboo** : what r u doing by the bridge this late?

 **Minou** : I’m just thinkin’.

 **Minou** : I could ask you a similar question. You never transform this late unless we’ve got patrol.

 **Bugaboo** : wanted 2 leave u an apology voicemail

 **Bugaboo** : but I guess I can do it in person

 **Minou** : Apology? For what?

 **Bugaboo** : hang on

 **Bugaboo** : stay where u r

 **Bugaboo** : I’ll bring croissants

 **Minou** : The ones with the chocolate in them?

 **Bugaboo** : of course

 **Minou** : Yesssssss

 **Bugaboo** : see u in 10

* * *

“You’re an angel,” Chat said, inhaling the heavenly scent of chocolate and fresh bread. “Where do you even get these?”

”Would you believe I make them?” Ladybug said with a cheeky smile, setting the basket down on the stone between them. (Of course he did—she lived in a bakery, for god’s sake. Though she didn’t know he knew that.) She flipped up the lid. “There you go,” she said. “All yours.”

He grinned, stuffing them into his mouth, and grinned some more. He probably looked like a chipmunk with all the chocolate stuffed into his cheeks. “Fanks!” he said through a mouthful of croissant.

Ladybug just stared at him, her expression flirting between amused and wary.

”You made the right call today,” she finally said. “And I just... wanted to let you know that I don’t blame you for what happened...” She blinked, swallowed. “You know, after.”

Chat lowered his third croissant and stared back at her. He could tell when Ladybug was lying, and right now, she was still telling half-truths.

He reached out to her, and instinctively, she flinched away.

”You’re still mad at me, aren’t you,” Chat murmured.

Ladybug sighed. “Of course I’m mad!” she said. “You... violated me!” Her tiny hands clenched into fists in her lap. “What you took from me...” she said, “I don’t think I can get it back.”

Chat swallowed some he felt his ribs constrict around his chest. He’d been afraid that he’d irreparably damaged their partnership, and right now her words were confirming his worst fears. He’d never meant to hurt her... he felt a rising urge to dig his claws into his wrists, to claw at the skin until the blood came out and brought sweet relief with it, the release of—

“But I wasn’t lying when I said you made the right call,” Ladybug said, interrupting his train of thought. “You did what I asked—you didn’t take the shot for me. And if you hadn’t used Cataclysm how you did, I’d have suffocated to death.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and he could see her suppressing a shiver. “I’ll... I’m emotional, and impulsive, but I’ll get over it,” she said. “I just need a few days.”

Chat’s lungs filled with air again, and it was like the feeling of the Miraculous Cure, everything wrong in the world suddenly made right. “I can do a few days,” he choked out.

They sat in silence, staring down into the moonlit Seine, a basket of uneaten croissants between them.

”So,” Chat said, breaking the awkward silence. “You have a crush on somebody?”

Ladybug shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “Besides, if today proves anything, it’s that he doesn’t... feel the same way.”

Chat’s head snapped up. “That’s not how it works,” he said, before his brain caught up to his mouth.

”What?”

Chat swallowed. “Hanahaki,” he said. “It doesn’t operate off how the other person actually feels, just how you think they do.” He drummed his fingers on his thighs. “If he did love you and you didn’t know it, you’d still react the same way as if he’d told you he didn’t.”

Ladybug stared at him, tears glistening on her face. “You mean...?”

Chat shook his head. “I mean that today proves nothing,” he said. _Nothing except that you don’t love me._ “Whoever this... guy?”

She nodded.

Chat pursed his lips. “Whoever this guy is, he probably does love you,” he said. “I don’t know who wouldn’t. He just doesn’t know how to show it.”

Ladybug swallowed, then shot forward, kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you, Chat,” she whispered through her tears. “Thank you.”

* * *

Adrien Agreste did not get much sleep that night.


End file.
